Google Pay and Wallet Launch in Thailand

[monkfish]

On 11/18/2022 at 1:57 PM, LivinLOS said:

the ones I have talked to and debated with online.. 

Still waiting for a fully legal thing that cannot be easily replicated by other services.. You have any ?? No one else seems to have come up with one. 

The primary thing that paypal offered exclusively was eCommerce services for small time operators.. Which are rarely legal (and if they were could obtain a business paypal). 

I can imagine there are probably more foreigners working online aka Digital Nomads i.e. programmers, web designers and graphic designers using Paypal services than those doing ecommerce. If they close the doors on them to receive payment they will probably just leave Thailand for more Digital Namad friendlier countries. Thailand will just loose income they bring into the country and spend here. In any case ecommerce will now require a Business account in Thailand even for Thai's so there's no point to prevent foreigners having a personal Paypal account.

[monkfish]

On 11/18/2022 at 5:06 AM, LivinLOS said:

I am still waiting for the non illegal use case of paypal that cannot be easily replaced. 

99% of the paypal complainers are really just illegal eCommerce workers avoiding taxes and registration. Is it surprising the Thai government want to stop that ? 

You talk about avoiding paying Taxes do you think retired Expats should be paying their income Tax in Thailand?
Because I think probably 100% don't.

 

 

Edited November 20, 2022 by monkfish

[TheAppletons]

14 hours ago, monkfish said:

You talk about avoiding paying Taxes do you think retired Expats should be paying their income Tax in Thailand?
Because I think probably 100% don't.

 

 

  Quite probably correct because retired expats are not required to pay income tax in Thailand.

 

[H1w4yR1da]

On 11/17/2022 at 8:54 PM, LivinLOS said:

Just tested Kasikorn debit.. Wont take it.. Thats only the second card out of maybe 20 I have tried its not accepted. 

Will be a bank issue.. My citi offshore wont link also. 

Has anyine tried a BB or KTB debit card?

[monkfish]

56 minutes ago, TheAppletons said:

  Quite probably correct because retired expats are not required to pay income tax in Thailand.

 

By law if you live more than 6 months a year in Thailand then you are required to pay tax on any income brought into Thailand but at the moment the law as with many isn't being enforced. The same goes for digital Nomads they can't pay Tax because there's no system in place for them to do so. I only mention it because another Member is accusing people of avoiding to pay income tax.

Edited November 20, 2022 by monkfish

[TheAppletons]

14 hours ago, monkfish said:

By law if you live more than 6 months a year in Thailand then you are required to pay tax on any income brought into Thailand but at the moment the law as with many isn't being enforced. The same goes for digital Nomads they can't pay Tax because there's no system in place for them to do so. I only mention it because another Member is accusing people of avoiding to pay income tax.

  I think your statement (bolded by me) is not factually correct.  

 

  "Also, personal income taxes are not required for retirees in Thailand.  Note that you can't work in Thailand while on a retirement visa."

 

https://www.liveandinvestoverseas.com/country-hub/thailand/taxes-in-thailand/

 

https://thaiembassy.com/faq/do-retirees-pay-income-tax

Edited November 20, 2022 by TheAppletons

[AgentSmith]

21 hours ago, Bangkok Barry said:

There are increasingly places that no longer accept cash. So yes, there are people preventing me from using it, and that will only increase over time. I prefer to shop where all customers are catered for instead of being dictated to.

Really? Can you give an example?

[Bangkok Barry]

2 hours ago, AgentSmith said:

On 11/20/2022 at 6:27 AM, Bangkok Barry said:

There are increasingly places that no longer accept cash. So yes, there are people preventing me from using it, and that will only increase over time. I prefer to shop where all customers are catered for instead of being dictated to.

Really? Can you give an example?

Nowhere you'd know, apparently.

[jacko45k]

16 hours ago, monkfish said:

You talk about avoiding paying Taxes do you think retired Expats should be paying their income Tax in Thailand?
Because I think probably 100% don't.

 

 

Presuming they have income outside of pensions?

Many with multiple pensions actually are taxed.

[monkfish]

21 hours ago, TheAppletons said:

  I think your statement (bolded by me) is not factually correct.  

 

  "Also, personal income taxes are not required for retirees in Thailand.  Note that you can't work in Thailand while on a retirement visa."

 

https://www.liveandinvestoverseas.com/country-hub/thailand/taxes-in-thailand/

 

https://thaiembassy.com/faq/do-retirees-pay-income-tax

Funny Thaiembassy.com isn't actually a Thai embassy or even any official site as might seem

 

The law says

 

1.Taxable Person

Taxpayers are classified into “resident” and “non-resident”. “Resident” means any person residing in Thailand for a period or periods aggregating more than 180 days in any tax (calendar) year. A resident of Thailand is liable to pay tax on income from sources in Thailand as well as on the portion of income from foreign sources that is brought into Thailand. A non-resident is, however, subject to tax only on income from sources in Thailand.

https://www.rd.go.th/english/6045.html

[lkn]

On 11/17/2022 at 7:39 AM, kimamey said:

Thailand appears to have come from the other direction in a lot of this. Making things easier for those using NFC first rather than the other way round doesn't make sense to me

I think Thailand has just been extremely slow at rolling out the payment infrastructure used by the rest of the world.

 

I got a contactless debit card from Krungthai ~3 years ago, that is, I went to my branch and explicitly requested to swap my current card for one with NFC, as I had seen someone else with a KTB card and a “PayWave”-logo.

 

But pretty much only Big-C truly supported this. At my local Rimping branch they had one terminal that could do NFC and I always had to ask for it, as it was placed behind the counter, unlike Big-C, which have the terminals facing the customer, so you just wave your card in front of it, as soon as the amount shows on the display.

 

As for GooglePay, this is the exact same technology (as “PayWave”), but it’s an opt-in for the bank, presumably there is some revenue share between Google and the bank (and VISA/MasterCard), and that is why until now, no Thai bank have opted into neither Google nor Apple Pay. That they launch it initially only for credit cards seems to support this, as the vendor fee for credit cards is usually higher than for debit cards, so the banks are giving up a small percent of their fee to Google only for the high profit cards.

 

In the E.U. interchange fees are capped at 0.11% for debit cards and 0.13% for credit cards (if I recall correctly), and this has helped tremendously in adopting cashless payments in the European Union, where it is ubiquitous in most countries.

[Joseph98765]

Paypal out....one week ago talking about 2026 50% of the physical notes will be destroyed, now this...yeah, I smell banks controlling us.

[Photoguy21]

I wonder if Google will harvest your data for this just as they do for everything else.

[lkn]

On 11/17/2022 at 3:27 AM, Bangkok Barry said:

Doesn't the business use a terminal linked to the internet? I've rarely used my phone to pay, if ever, so I don't know.

Ideally the terminal should be online, but we had a serious power outage in my country some years ago, and big chains switched to “offline mode”, I think in practice that means they queue the payment and send it to the clearing house once the power/connection is back.

 

This is suboptimal because a customer can spend more money than they have, but the bank will just charge them overdraft fees or interests, so it’s not a serious problem. Another problem could be lack of fraud detection, but in my entire life, I have only witnessed one such power outage that took down the realtime payment system, so it’s unlikely a real concern, at least not for the big chains, they will just have to write off the fraudulent payments as the cost of doing business during a power outage (not sure there actually was any fraud committed during this window).

 

Additionally, today small vendors can accept contactless payments via iPhone (yes, NFC, not that QR-code сгар), so the chance of them not having power/internet would be extremely unlikely. Although this is probably not yet available to Thai vendors.

[phetphet]

On 11/16/2022 at 9:35 PM, SooKee said:

Might be useful unless the Killjoy Squad dream up some hurdle to make it impossible for use unless you are a Thai citizen.  Thailand version -4.0 ????

Wait until the AMLO get in on the act.

Intensive ID verification and THB4000 limit to prevent money laundering.

[lkn]

All those fearful of big brother: I really wouldn’t fear this in Thailand.

 

Look at how bad they are at producing meaningful statistical data about pretty much anything, and for the banks, have you looked at your bank statement? Worst I have seen is SCB, every line item was just a long seemingly random number, maybe a vendor ID for where I used my card?

 

This was actually one of the reasons I stopped using SCB, not that KTB is that much better, I still see many “descriptions” which are just some long alpha-numeric identifier, rather than a shop or business name.

 

If you were to get ahold of my bank statement, you would have no idea about 90% of my expenses.

Edited November 21, 2022 by lkn

[HighPriority]

On 11/17/2022 at 11:34 AM, Bangkok Barry said:

We had a long power cut in my area yesterday. So if you wanted to use the internet to pay, forget it. Paper works, always, every time, never needs an internet connection. But having something that works all the time is so retro and only for dinosaurs.

Different country, but what happens in Oz when the internet is down is the transaction is stored (seamlessly and automatically) and when the internet thingy is restored the transaction gets processed, hard for a dinosaur to understand I guess…

[Bangkok Barry]

39 minutes ago, HighPriority said:

Different country, but what happens in Oz when the internet is down is the transaction is stored (seamlessly and automatically) and when the internet thingy is restored the transaction gets processed, hard for a dinosaur to understand I guess…

And if the transaction is refused, eventually, the store loses. Okay. I find it amusing how people and businesses willingly bend to the demands of progress, whereas using cash demands nothing of anyone and payment is guaranteed. Every time.

[lkn]

1 hour ago, Bangkok Barry said:

And if the transaction is refused, eventually, the store loses. Okay. I find it amusing how people and businesses willingly bend to the demands of progress, whereas using cash demands nothing of anyone and payment is guaranteed. Every time.

Have you worked as a cashier? I have, when we accepted larger bills, we had to ensure they were not counterfeit (yes, there are people circulating fake bills), and after each shift, we had to count all the cash in our register, often it would be slightly off with what should actually be in the register, probably because someone gave back incorrect change, or miscounted the amount received, multiply that by the number of cashiers and also add the expense of paying your cashiers for counting cash at the end of their shift, and then someone needs to go and deposit this in the bank…

 

Cash is a pain to deal with if you are a business. Also for employers, for example even though I have set up bank transfers / automatic debit / etc. for all the expenses of our building that support this, our building manager still goes through 30-50,000 baht in cash each month, for which there are only paper receipts, that I then have to pay an accountant to check… would be so much nicer if he could just get a debit card and pay everything with that, and then we would have an exact digital record of the money he spent.

 

In Europe we even have shops that support issuing a digital receipt based on the payment card used. So when I go to the local shop, wave my phone in front of the payment terminal, I receive the itemized receipt on my phone. Even for my private economy this can come in handy, for example a few days ago I had to return an item because I bought the wrong one, and the receipt was there on my phone…

[lkn]

Another advantage of “cashless” is that many shops in Europe now have “self checkout” where you can scan and pay for your stuff. Granted, I think some self checkout terminals do accept cash, but a few stores have taken the next step, and allow people to scan items (with their phone) while they are shopping, and then just pay, this eliminates the need to wait in line, and I absolutely love it! Makes me much less hesitant to shop during rush hour.

[AgentSmith]

On 11/21/2022 at 6:54 AM, Bangkok Barry said:

Nowhere you'd know, apparently.

Do you?

[croftrobin]

On 11/17/2022 at 6:45 AM, LivinLOS said:

Many thais are perfectly legal as freelancers and solopreneurs.. Non Thais are not (they need company and work permit). Cant you see the difference ?? 

So far no one has named any non illegal reason for paypal not better done and or easily replaced by wise or other transfer services. Can you ?? 

Payoneer who ebay moved users over to from Paypal in this country.

 

My wife uses it.

 

Foreigners can use it too.

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by croftrobin

[H1w4yR1da]

On 11/17/2022 at 8:54 PM, LivinLOS said:

Just tested Kasikorn debit.. Wont take it.. Thats only the second card out of maybe 20 I have tried its not accepted. 

Will be a bank issue.. My citi offshore wont link also. 

I wonder if anyone has tried a Bangkok Bank or Krung Thai Bank Mastercard debit card.